Vishalakshi Shakti Peeth (Varanasi)

The story

According to the Shakti Peeth tradition, after King Daksha's yagya Shiv ji wandered in grief carrying the body of Devi Sati. Vishnu ji's Sudarshan chakra then divided the body, and wherever a part or an ornament fell, a Shakti Peeth arose. Her earring is believed to have fallen at Kashi; some texts speak of her eye or face instead. In the Devi Bhagavat's list of 108 seats of the Devi, Vishalakshi of Varanasi comes first. The Kashi Khand of the Skanda Purana calls her one of the nine Gauris of Kashi and says that Vishwanath ji rests near her temple. The same Purana tells a gentle story: once the sage Vyas could find no one in Kashi to give him food. Vishalakshi came as a housewife and fed him, just as Maa Annapurna would, and so devotees see the two Devis as very close. In Kashi's sacred round, darshan of Vishwanath ji, Vishalakshi, Ganga ji, Kaal Bhairav, Dhundhiraj Ganesh and Dandapani together is counted as one complete pilgrimage. The present building was rebuilt in 1893 by the Nattukottai Nagarathars, a trading community from Tamil Nadu, in a North Indian haveli style with a small South Indian gopuram.